root Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 The only thing strange about this thread is that no one has stated the obvious. You make 'friends' here on photo.net who do exactly the same thing. They like YOU and rate YOU, regardless of what you put up. At some point, we're going to want to do some serious tests to try to figure out exactly which accoutns are rating people and which ones are rating photographs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mottershead Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 Jay, I'm sorry. I should have said that it is so improbable that a friend or relative who drops by to rate your photos will be unbiased as to not make it worth considering. And we are not even talking about friend/relative ratings in general; we are talking about ratings given from accounts where as many as 100% of the ratings were on one person's photographs, uniformly high. Cases like this are indistinguishable from a bogus account created for self-rating. The reason that I remember the ratings deleted in Joe's case, was that at the time it seemed so extreme as to be either (1) a bunch of accounts he had created himself; or (2) a bunch of accounts created by someone else with the intention of making him look bad. I don't recall any of them that were as "unconcentrated" as 25%, which Joe says was his wife, but given how many there were with much higher concentrations, I don't think it unreasonable that I allowed the robot to delete the ratings that it had flagged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
root Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 "Or that no one can give rating to anyone that they know personaly because somehow it is unfair." The issue of blood or marriage and concentration of ratings isn't the problem. How many ratings, especially on the TRP, come from an extended PN family? . . . and guess what? It isn't a question of whether or not you're part of one. It's how you use and abuse your relationships. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbs Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 Thank you for the clarification and the respective points taken. Jay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe_orsak Posted July 17, 2004 Author Share Posted July 17, 2004 James, You certainly have the right to feel that way as you have no clue of who I am, my intentions, my integrity or otherwise - though I find it interesting that you ASSUME the negative. Work on this site (fortunately or unfortunately) is increased in visibility by the sheer number of ratings. Period. I send out links to my friend when I have captured something that I feel brings Glory to God. Case in point (my last submission): http://www.photo.net/photo/2519008&size=lg My intentions in this photo should be obvious. The theme should be obvious. That I desire to increase it's visibility to send that message to more people is MY prerogative. To say that friends and family are incapable of rating fairly is (without the long conversation) just wrong. My wife hates computers. She types at about 10 words a minute and thus doesn't particularly care for forums. She has on more than one occasoin posted a comment. Her account is kimorsak@houston.rr.com. Feel free to e-mail her. That is her active working e-mail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe_orsak Posted July 17, 2004 Author Share Posted July 17, 2004 It is quite feasible that SOME of my friends had 100% of their ratings on my stuff. Additionally, I know that NO ONE ever rated all my shots a 7 and that NEVER did any one of these people rate all my shots a 7 or even all 6+. Every single person who I ever sent a link to has rated 4,5,6, and 7. My wife's 1st ratings were 400+ when they were deleted and at the time I only had about 100 - 120 shots. That is a fact whether it is remembered or not by the site admins. She is now at around 80 shots rated (I think I haven't looked at her account when she's rating in a while so it could be higher). Do you blame her for not being very excited about going and rating a lot of other's photos again Brian? So will she be deleted again? If so, I think I can safely say we will not be paying $25 again or participating in this site any more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mottershead Posted July 17, 2004 Share Posted July 17, 2004 Joe, as I said, I have a program that automatically deletes ratings of people who concentrate "too many" ratings on one person. I'm not going to tell you what "too many" is exactly, and I'm not going to stop running the program. It is designed specifically to delete the ratings from people like photographers' wives, etc, and from bogus accounts. So learning that among the people whose ratings it has deleted is your wife, and that it might do so again, doesn't deter me at all. Do you think I should only delete the ratings I consider suspect when they are just meaningless names, and if I am just asked nicely (or threatened with a non-renewal of a subscription), that I'll make an exception? So, as I said, please ask your real-world friends not to join the site specifically to rate your photos. If they are photographers or are interested in photography, and in the course of their activities on the site, they happen to rate some of your photos, that is not a problem, any more than it would be a problem if you happen to rate some of their photos as you amble about the site. Anyway, I don't have any way to tell who are your friends. Ratings aside, your friends are as welcome as anybody to view your photos and to comment on them. But rating 80 or a 100 photos of one photographer with mostly high ratings, and not many photos of anybody else, looks dishonest to me, and I think the chances of it being otherwise are so small that I can disregard them. I will live with the loss of the one member in a thousand who has 10 totally honest friends who rate dozens of his photos and those of practically noone else. Photographers on photo.net are competing with each other for visiblity based not on how many friends and family-members they send to rate their photos, but on the merit of the photos as perceived by people who are supposedly neutral. If I have sufficient reason to believe that the ratings are not from disinterested people, then they will be deleted. I know several couples with accounts on this site who scrupulously avoid rating one another's photos. That is as it should be. So, if your friends come onto this site for the purpose of rating your photos, rate large numbers of them with high ratings, and I notice, I will personally delete the ratings before waiting for the robot to do it. Only the next time, I will ban you from the Gallery as well. As I recall, I was pretty close to doing that the last time. I relented because (a) I thought it might be someone trying to make you look bad (as I said); and (b) if it wasn't, I figured you were new on the site and that you'd get the message. Seems like I was wrong on both points. But not the next time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mottershead Posted July 17, 2004 Share Posted July 17, 2004 Joe, I've just been looking at the ratings on your photos. I don't normally allow public trials to be conducted in the forums, and I will delete this thread tomorrow morning. I'm making an exception because this discussion has been public up until now. 1. There are 37 accounts where more than 20% of the ratings have been given to you. Of these, 27 of them have over 50% of the ratings on your photos, and 23 of the accounts have rated only your photos. While some of these 37 have relatively few ratings, about 15 of them have rated large numbers of your photos. There are 5 accounts with more than 50 ratings where 100% of them are on your photos. 2. Your wife has given 81% of her ratings to you; this is after I already deleted a lot of her ratings. 3. A lot of these accounts were created from the same IP addresses on the same dates. 9 of the accounts were from one IP from Sheraton Hotel Corporation. (Is that where you work?) Another 6 were from another IP. A few other IP's have 2 or 3 sign-ups at the same time, followed by ratings only on your photos. It looks like either you are creating a lot of bogus accounts and rating yourself from various places, or you are getting whole bunches of friends/co-workers to sign up at the same time, or sometimes over a couple of days, for the purpose of rating your photos, and essentially only your photos. I have deleted all the ratings from these accounts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe_orsak Posted July 18, 2004 Author Share Posted July 18, 2004 No, Sheraton is a client of mine and I know scores of people there. All of which are on my e-mail list. So it makes complete sense that they would create their accounts on or around the same day since I emialed all of them at the same time along with about 100 other people. There are some from the sheratoniah.com e-mail address that I know signed up a while back with another round of e-mail that I sent out on another photo. I don't send out links to my photos unless i have a shot I particularly like or think is a good photo. Some comment and have commented in the past. As I said about my wife, you guys deleted her account ratings when she had over 400 ratings. Now she has relatively few because she has been uninterested in going back and doing all that rating again. She hasn't even rated all of mine I don't think becuase she's generally peeved at you guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich815 Posted July 18, 2004 Share Posted July 18, 2004 Brian, don't delete this thread. It should be saved as an example to all others who attempt manipulation of the system. This is pathetic. The dishonesty astounds me. Someone clearly will pay dear for such. Sad. Really sad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly_flanigan1 Posted July 18, 2004 Share Posted July 18, 2004 What a bizzare thread.<BR><BR> Whats the point of having close friends rate something? They are biased.<BR><BR> A total random group of strangers will give a better rating of a kids pitching ability; singing ability; photo ability; neatness; rudeness; appearance; biases; etc etc.<BR><BR> Ebay only gives one point for rating a buyer of seller; this reduces the pump up factor.<BR><BR> In test marketing; one purposely wants a non-rigged rating; to see if a new gizmo is saleable; or total crap poor sink hole investment.<BR><BR> So if average images are pumped up to be perfect; whom does this help?<BR><BR> What if parents could pump up their kids report cards?<BR><BR> What if the doctor about to operate on you glossed over his stuff in school; but passed due to the pump up factor?. <BR><BR>Whats the point of pumping up ratings? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe_orsak Posted July 18, 2004 Author Share Posted July 18, 2004 I repeat: None of my friends have EVER rated all my shots 7's or even 6's. Every single friend I have was told and did rate as the saw fit to rate. Consequently, (as with myself), many didn't rate some of my shots that they didn't care for. It amazes me that firends in RL are OBVIOUSLY biased and incapable of rating where as the "friends" we meet and make here on this site are perfectly capable. The hypocricy is thick enough to cut with a knife. Secondly, visibility on this site ISN'T determined by score but by sheer volume of ratings. (I know you can set it to check by score, but it still is based on # of ratings.) So there is little if no motivation to tell friends to rate HIGH but only to RATE period. Here's a perfect example of one of my "biased" friends. His ratings were deleted because he had only rated a few of mine and a few other photos. He uploaded several of his own shots but his ratings are not valid somehow because he's a "friend" of mine in real life. Brian, I challenge you to e-mail this person and question his integrity or honesty in his ratings. While your at it, ask him how he feels about his ratings being deleted. Why not delete his account too. It's probably bogus. http://www.photo.net/shared/community-member?user_id=946040 Sad! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe_orsak Posted July 18, 2004 Author Share Posted July 18, 2004 Not ot mention, what the heck is wrong with wanting your friends to see / comment / give a genuine opinon on your work? Good grief. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vincetylor Posted July 18, 2004 Share Posted July 18, 2004 I dont see a problem Joe if a few friends do go online and rate and or discuss a few of your photos. It just seems hard to believe that so many of these friends would actually do that though. I have sent numerous links of specific images to other photographers, friends and some family. Many businesses, galleries, printers other professionals also get my portfolio link. Guess how many of these people have either commented or rated any of my 76 images?? (And some have been posted for almost two years). The answer is zero. Nobody took the time to open an account and rate or comment. None. And I do not expect any to do that ever to be quite honest. You know what they do if they like an image or want to comment? The e-mail me about it. So, for so many different people to do this... -and many on the same day at that- does seem a little hard to believe. I'm definitely not saying these are all bogus accounts here either. But the chances of that sound much more likely than these friends all being compelled to open accounts and then rate your work, many at the same time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly_flanigan1 Posted July 18, 2004 Share Posted July 18, 2004 Joe; some of us almost never rate any photos at all. I spend all day dealing with images; and mostly hang here for technical info. This is why I have never understood the passion for rating images. It seems like worrying over what ones report card was in 2nd grade. The image galleries get mostly bypassed by dialup users; they tend to bog the server; and tend to cause a ruckus. What is funny is that threads that take 5 minutes to load are bypassed; because they are too slow. All text threads are read more; since there is no bog. <BR><BR>Us non raters have peeves too. Many times folks will ask the same question in 3 to 5 areas; and then one gets deleted; seconds after answering a question. <BR><BR> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mottershead Posted July 18, 2004 Share Posted July 18, 2004 Joe, the account you pointed to had uploaded 3 photos and had givem 7 ratings, 3 of them to you. I deleted all of them last night, because they were part of this incident. But we also delete all the ratings of people who have rated less than 10 photos anyway, if they seem to have stopped rating. (That is, they haven't given any ratngs for a certain amount of time.) In other words, people who signed up and rated a handful of photos and then seem to have stopped. Those ratings are too likely to be a friend, a troll, revenge, bogus, etc, and in the unlikely case that they aren't, they are obviously from a person who didn't stay interested. So your friend's ratings would have been deleted on the next run of that program anyway. This Gallery is not supposed to be about your political ability -- that is, your ability to organize people to come and rate your photos. It is also not about anyone's access to a supply of email addresses with which to create bogus accounts. That is why bogus accounts, mate-rating, etc are objectionable. The Critique Forum is about the quality of the photos, according to the opinion of disinterested people. Are you so convinced of your own rectitude and that of your friends that you can't see this? If you can't see what is wrong with this and promise to stop doing it, you will need to take down your photos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe_orsak Posted July 18, 2004 Author Share Posted July 18, 2004 Vincent, Thank you for one of the only "Kind" objections presented. I went through my "Sent" e-mail list to find the e-mail so that I could provide the exact e-mail. Here it is: Recently, I took a picture that I am quite proud of. To date it's my favorite piece. It's called "Take up your Cross daily." If you get the chance, check it out at wwww.photo.net. You have to be registered on the site but registration is simple and free and it's a great site. Drop a comment and a honest rating. I'd be most appreciative. Visibility on the site is determined by # of ratings. After the first day it was posted it is in the top 25 photos for the three day period. Since the piece has a message that I'm hoping to convey, more visibility is a great thing. The link below is the photo. http://www.photo.net/photo/2519008 Sincerely, Joe Now, Vincent, (and everyone else) I honestly had no idea that asking friends to look at and rate my shots was a bad thing. I will be seriously considering dropping my membership here since that was a major part of my motivation for being here. Allowing my friends access to see my shots and to give me opinons on my work. Additionally Vincent, there are 2 things I wanted to point out to answer your question about the number who sign up and rate as you put it so respectfully which seems to be ever lacking in these forums. #1. I e-mail to around 200 people. #2. I don't know the exact number (Brian would) but I think around 15 people signed up in the last week maybe 20. Not sure. So roughly 10% of the people I e-mail signed up. #3. Many of the people on my e-mail list (75%+) are Christians and are responding to "Take up your Cross Daily" as my title of the work and that I am wanting to "get the message out" more based on more visibility. (Honestly, I'm always a little sad that so few actually sign up and rate or comment.) I hope that illustrates in a more understandable way why 10% of my friends signed up and rated my picture and pretty much most of them only rated THAt picture and a few others. Over the period of several months there were roughly (according to Brian) around 30 of my friends. As to be expected, some had rated others stuff. Some had rated only my stuff. Some had rated very little and some had rated a lot of my photos. The spread of activity makes it fairly obvious that these aren't bogus accounts and that it's random people with random tastes in the site. I actually thought I was promoting the site and trying to encourage people to check it out. However, most aren't really into photography and it's a bit like inviting people to church. You get a few that are interested and most just dabble around for a while at it and never come back. So, Brian, no. I see your point, but I don't agree. And yes, I will be considering dropping my account here. To answer Kelly's question,"This is why I have never understood the passion for rating images." Kelly, I don't care about the "Score" for scores sake at all. I'm a very amature photographer. I've been shooting for 6 months now. I'd prefer that everyone comment and leave detail critiques on my shots but they don't. If you check out my ratings you will see that I have rated around 800 pieces and commented on all 800 ratings. So, the ratings only become important to me to TRY and decipher what makes a successful shot and what does not. I take improving very seriously and I think I can look at my work over the span of time that I've been shooting and see definite improvement. That has ALL come from my efforts here on this site; Observing ratings on my photos and even taking the time (in the past when it was possible) to e-mail people who rated low to ask them as kindly as possible to explain the low ratings for me so I could learn from why they didn't like the shot has lead to me improving. Perhaps you as a professional and possibly schooled person, odn't need to worry about such minutia in order to improve at what you do. For me, it's one of the only means I have. i hope that sheds some light on the perspective. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mottershead Posted July 18, 2004 Share Posted July 18, 2004 Joe, you don't need to consider dropping your account. I've made the decision for you. I gave you the option of promising not to continue doing this. That was not an invitation for further debate. It was one last chance. You needed to say: I might not agree, but I respect the site's policies and I will comply with them. You aren't getting this, and I don't think you are going to get it. It doesn't seem that the possibility that what you are doing might be wrong can penetrate your mind. You just described how you spam your friends and contacts in order to pump up your ratings on photo.net, as if it were completely normal behaviour to which nobody could possibly take exception; indeed that there is something strange with anybody who would take exception. You are banned from the site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kim_rasco Posted July 18, 2004 Share Posted July 18, 2004 Since I am unable to log in under my account (an expect my wife's account to be canceled.) Let me say this: #1. Brian, I understand your reaction (though I think it was a bit knee jerk.) and even thought about this morning when I was at church that I should have clarified something (only to come home and find out that I was blocked from clarifying.) #2. That being: I don't agree. I honestly didn't feel that I was doing anything wrong. BUT that it is your site and that if I decided to stay, I would abide by that. So if you choose to keep my account blocked, that's fine. I understand and no biggy but I need the following. #1. Deleting of my photos which are still posted. #2. Either - A refund for 6 months of service #3. or - Something in writing stating that was a rule prior to this incidence. I don't think it was ever written in any rules that friends and family couldn't be e-mailed to rate or critique work. Thanks. No hard feelings eitehr way. Joe. PS. Despite my beefs and obvious philosophical differences about the site, I still think it's a great site and will continue to recommend it to others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
june_ranson Posted July 18, 2004 Share Posted July 18, 2004 Brian, please don't delete this thread. It has been very educational for me, and who knows how many others. As a newcomer, it's hard to catch on to everything that's going on quicky... a bit like coming in to watch the movie after it's half over. So discussions of the fine points, like this, are useful, ok? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
home page1 Posted July 18, 2004 Share Posted July 18, 2004 I agree, Brian. You should leave this thread up. It is a good demonstration of the rules and what can get you kicked off PN. I must say that this thread is a real shocker to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kim_rasco Posted July 18, 2004 Share Posted July 18, 2004 As an additional side note to prove my point: http://www.photo.net/photo/2519008 You deleted 17 ratings from this photo that were marked as "Friends". With a fairly decent number of ratings (17) to use as a sample, how did this affect my average? .37. Yep, That's pretty dramatic. Obviously my "friends" rating this photo drove my ratings way up and their completely incapable of rating accurately. With 17 ratings there was a whapping .37 variance from the other 37 raters. I think this pretty clearly demonstrates the capacities of "friends" rating a photo. But never the less... Your call obviously. And as I said, I would abide by it. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kim_rasco Posted July 19, 2004 Share Posted July 19, 2004 Additionally, Brian, so it is perfcetly clear, I will e-mail all my friends and ask them NOT to rate or comment me on this site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich815 Posted July 19, 2004 Share Posted July 19, 2004 Kim/Joe, stop being so intransigent. Brian never said any such thing. He did make it clear though that if someone does come and rate a person's images, and barely rates anyone else's, then those ratings will be deleted. It's pretty simple really. Read Brian's posts again, it makes PERFECT sense in their efforts to have the ratings not unfairly influenced. Then again, it's pretty obvious, as Brian says, <i>"You aren't getting this, and I don't think you are going to get it. It doesn't seem that the possibility that what you are doing might be wrong can penetrate your mind."</i> Fairly typical I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kim_rasco Posted July 20, 2004 Share Posted July 20, 2004 Richard, #1. Intransigent (nice word). I would have to rent that one out from the library. I'm NOT being uncompromising AT ALL. In fact, I'm trying to go OVERBOARD in compromising. That was the point of saying I would even e-mail my friends and tell everyone who I had asked to stop in and rate me NOT to rate me at all. It's typical of a forum that you can't hear voice inflection and subsequently people often make assumptions that are incorrect. I will assume that the tone of condescending judgementalism was unintentional and that you weren't attempting to see into my heart and judge my motives or otherwise. In short... I'm trying to be as compromising as possible. Yes, I don't agree with Brian philosophically on this point BUT I have acknowledged that it is his site and that I'd abide by his descisions. How much more compromosing do you want me to be? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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